Papers of the British School at Rome The

Papers of the British School at Rome http://journals.cambridge.org/ROM Additional services for Papers of the British School at Rome: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna.—III. (The Via Latina)—Section II. T. Ashby Papers of the British School at Rome / Volume 5 / January 1910, pp 214 - 425 DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200005316, Published online: 09 August 2013 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0068246200005316 How to cite this article: T. Ashby (1910). The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna.—III. (The Via Latina)—Section II.. Papers of the British School at Rome, 5, pp 214-425 doi:10.1017/S0068246200005316 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/ROM, IP address: 134.153.170.22 on 15 Mar 2015 PAPERS OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME. VOL. V. No. 6 THE CLASSICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA PART III SECTION II BY T. ASHBY, D.LITT., F.S.A. Director of the British School at Rome; formerly Craven Fellow in the University of Oxford ; Corresponding Member of the German Iniperial Archaeological Institute.. LONDON: 1910 THE VIA LATINA (SECTION II.). INTRODUCTION. THE work of preparing this, the second portion of the description of the classical topography of the Via Latina, has shown me more clearly than before how impossible it is to hope to attain finality in dealing with the Campagna. The late Henry Stevenson's notes now in the Vatican Library (those which especially concern this district are to be found for the most part in Vat. Lat. 10572) are a perfect mine of information, especially when taken with his own copies of the Staff Map on which the ruins he found are marked (now bound up together as Vat. Lat. 10587 B), and one realizes more than ever the value and extent of the work he might have done had he lived longer. As I have examined them carefully, I. have given full details of their contents. The maps for the present volume were unfortunately made before I had time to consult these valuable sources of information. And yet, when I came to go over the ground again, I found that there were many ruins that even he had not noticed, some of them of considerable size and importance. The truth of course is, that in hilly country so shut in by enclosures, covered too in the main by vineyards, oliveyards, or gardens, and wooded in the higher parts, it is impossible to get the clear distant views that are obtainable in the open Campagna; and even then one cannot be sure, without actually passing over every bit of ground, that there are not some ruins beneath the soil the presence of which is only disclosed by debris. One comes to realize more and more how thickly populated was this part of the country, which seems to have been the favourite summer resort of the wealthier Romans. Much more research in archives, too, would have to be undertaken before the material available was anything like exhausted. In the present section I have used to some extent the reports of excavations in the Atti del Camerlengato, Titolo, iv (1824-1854) now preserved in the 216 THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME. Archivio di Stato : the reports for the succeeding period in the records of the Pontifical Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Fine Arts (1854-1870) preserved in the same archives, I have not as yet touched. The former contain, as will be seen from some of the specimens I have given, most valuable information, of which I hope to make further use.1 On the other hand, besides Prof. Tomassetti's work on the Via Latina already cited, I have had the advantage of being able to use an excellent little book by Father F. Grossi-Gondi, S. J., // Tuscolano mil' eta dassica (Rome, 1908), with illustrations from photographs, a good map, on the • same scale as the Staff Map and my own (1:25,000) and a full bibliography,2 which has appeared since the publication of vol. iv of the Papers. A residence of several years at Mondragone has given him the opportunity of accurate local study, and the results have been given to the the world both in articles in the Bullettino Comunalej&nd elsewhere, and in a work on Mondragone itself (La villa dei Quintilii e la villa di Mondragone, Rome, 1901). The present book is an excellent handbook. 1 The addenda to this and the former parts of the Classical Topography of the Roma Campagna are postponed owing to considerations of space. 2 In regard to the bibliography I may notice the following points, (i) The MS. cited as. Anonimo, Viaggio Antiquario in aletme citta del Lazio. Osservazioni su Tuscolo, and as having been sold in the Vespignani sale as No. 106, is in reality an inaccurate reference to the notes of Nibby (No. 581 in that sale) now in my possession (cited as Schede in the text). (2) The album Veteris Latii Anliqua Vestigia, Rome, 1751 is entered twice—once under Anonimo, once under A16 Giovannoli. I do not know of there being any ground for the latter attribution. Almost all the plates as a fact are identical with those in Corradini and Volpi's Velus Latium Profanmn (1704-45). The Veteris Latii antiquitatum amplissima collectio, noted under the year 1771 (really 1776), is a second enlarged edition of the same collection. (3) 'Domenico (Fra) MS. della Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile di Frascati.' This is the same MS. as that quoted by Lanciani in Bull. Com. 1884, 172 sqq. (Cod. tusc. 14, I. 11, Antichita del Tuscolo e descrizzione del Lazio eseguita da P. Domenico Cappuccino da Frascati). My copy of the Bull. Com., which belonged to Stevenson, contains additions made by him to Lanciani's copies, so that I have not thought it necessary to re-examine the MS. myself. It must have been written towards the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century (infra, 243), as the passage as to the Villa at Kontana Piscaro (Lanciani, loc. cit. p. 201) is an exact copy of Kircher, Latium, 73 (published in 1671). (4) The exact title of the views by Labruzzi which were engraved by Parboni and Poggioli is Vedute ed avanzi delf antica citta di Albalonga ora Albano disegnali dal vero etc., and there are 24 drawings, not 26. None of these views actually relates to Tusculum ; and I do not find any entry in the Catalogue of the Stourhead Library (London, 1840) pp. 543 sqq. which would justify the supposition that Labruzzi or Sir R. Colt Hoare did any drawings there. (5) To Piacentini's works we should add Commentarium Graecae Pronuntiationis (Rome, 1751) and Be Tusculano Cicercnis nunc Crypta Ferrata (Rome, 1758) cited by Venuti in the preface to, the Monumenta Mattheiana, p. iv, No. 2. (6) Cozza's work // Tusculano di M. Tullio Cicerone first appeared in Giornale Arcadico, cxc. 97 m- CLASSICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.—III. 217 XIII.—THE VIA LATINA FROM CASALE CIAMPINO TO GROTTAFERRATA {from the Tenth to the Twelfth Mile). In the cutting by which the tramway leaves the highroad the line of the Via Latina was discovered 40 metres within the vineyard, running 300 E. of S. On each side of it remains of tombs of opus quadratum and opus reticulatum and later burials under tiles were found: a terra-cotta sarcophagus was also discovered. The interval available for the road, including footpaths, appeared to be about 8'5o metres, but the actual road- way, here as elsewhere, was probably about 4/20 metres (14 Roman feet). Here I found some brickstarhps on tiles of the first century, perhaps used, however, for late tombs a capanna—C.I.L. xv. 1383 (a or c), 2333 a (?) (IVN ) and a fragment of 169 b (?) (OP . D .. ) the letters being larger than usual, with a dog (?) in the centre. In the fieldwall, before the tramway was made, I copied a fragment of an inscription on a marble slab O'2O metre thick in well cut letters There are, as we saw in Papers iv. 130, in the Vigna Gentilini and the Vigna Costanza Senni, the next vineyard to it to the S.E., the remains of four tombs above ground, two on each side of the course of the ancient Via Latina. The first, on the right of the road,1 though I have wrongly marked it on the left, is a circular mass of concrete: then comes another one, on the left, of concrete, preserved to some height, which is square, and then two others, less well preserved, on the left-hand side of the road.2 Many ancient gems are said have been found here (Stevenson, Vat. Lat. 10572, 34V). 1 The second part of Lanciani's article, describing this section of the road, has not yet appeared. The map is reproduced in Wanderings in the Roman Campagna (London, 1909), p. 23. 2 The entrance to the catacomb mentioned in Papers, iv. 130 is situated immediately to the S, of the tram line, which indeed cuts through some of its galleries. It has been re-opened, and will shortly be carefully explored. At the entrance we saw a marble slab with the following inscription :— oMirnuniAE vm\tRiAt, A . V . XIII . M . V PERMISSV SEMPRONIAE DIGNITATIS OPTIME FEMINAE (sic) !' H. T. D . M. AB ESTO .218 THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME. On the S.W. side of the road, where a reservoir is marked in the map, are the remains of a villa with two platforms : on the lower is a reservoir, which originally 'had four chambers (three of which are preserved) intercommunicating by means of five arches in each of the intermediate walls.

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